A Study in Life
by caughtup
Summary: The story of a canon character. Set in a universe many years after Ootp.


Prologue-Those We Have Loved and Lost  
  
The night was dark and teeming with mystical energies. She peered out the window and stroked the cat in her arms absentmindedly. Mystical...it had been so long since she had used the word. It was Halloween tonight. The night when, according to ancient lore, ghosts, vampires, ghouls and all manner of creatures came out to haunt.  
  
She wondered if her beloved would be among them tonight, watching over her and his. Sometimes, she could feel him around her. An almost brush against her cheek; a soft wind teasing her hair in summertime when drafts of air were hard to come by; the imprint of warm lips against her own in the middle of winter. They were all signs, signs that he was here and yet absent. There, yet not there.  
  
She continued looking out the window at the Philadelphian suburbs. Most in this town would have thought her insane for believing in ghosts. Sometimes, she herself believed them.  
  
'Sane people don't have the experiences that you do, Elis'  
  
No, they didn't. She was unique. People would think her strange; they always had and always would. After all, there was nothing common about being an intern at the Philadelphia State Hospital, who lived in a huge, ugly Victorian house with her six-year old daughter. No matter where she went, whispers would follow for sure.  
  
'Voices, voices; always whispering; always behind your back'  
  
She coped with them by not caring. Or at least, putting up the illusion of not caring. Those voices had been there all her life. At kindergarten when she played.  
  
'What an ugly child'  
  
All the way through school she had endured.  
  
'Smart-aleck, ugly nerd, buck-toothed freak'  
  
Even at Hogwarts, she had had to put up with them, brush them off.  
  
'Mudblood, teacher's pet. Miss-know-it-all'  
  
They had been present when she married him, at all of eighteen.  
  
'How'd she ever get him. Must have used her wily charms. Shrew. She probably brewed a Love Potion and fed it to the poor boy'  
  
But she hadn't cared. Not then, not now. Her life thus far had been an air of studied nonchalance, full of shields and barriers erected to keep everyone else out. She had had friends. The few who had seen past her facade and stood by her. But the few she had, no matter how close had adandoned her when she married him.  
  
'You gave up your life'  
  
Yes, she had sacrificied alot. But wasn't that what Love was all about? Besides they had been happy and she had been loved. Loved until he was lost. Loved until a part of her soul had been torn away, never to be replaced, never to heal.  
  
She let a wave of nostalgia and pain overcome her for a moment as she felt that aching hole in her being, and mourned. It always surprised her; the intensity and depth of emotion she felt for one man whom she had loved for a short period of time.  
  
'Too short'  
  
The pitter-patter of a child's feet was heard and a tiny being came into view. Elisa pushed her aside and wiped away the sudden, uncontainable droplets that now streaked her cheeks. She turned and faced the girl, her daughter. Huge grey eyes, stunning brown-blonde hair and high, aristocratic cheekbones made Jenia a truly exquisite sample of one of God's painstakingly crafted children.  
  
"Mummy, can I eat some of my trick-or-treating candy?" those eyes begged her to say yes.  
  
"Jenia, its almost 10 o'clock at night! You shouldn't be up, much less eating at this time!" she rebuked her child in a fierce voice.  
  
"But Mummmmmy!!" that whining voice and quivering lips were just a few of the fearsome weapons any six-year old possesed in her arsenal.  
  
"Alright, but just one piece you here me. Just one!" Elisa relented. How could she deny this precocious, beloved child of hers anything? God worked in mysterious ways; to deprive her of one she loved and gift her with one she would die for.  
  
'His workings are not for the mortal mind to ponder'  
  
No, she was a simple mortal being who followed the path that had been sat before her; who made the best of what life gave her. She would not mourn any longer, or so she had told herself countless times.  
  
'But how can one forget what is loved and lost?'  
  
Forget, no. Remember, always.  
  
Jenia returned with a chair and climbed up to the closet to get at her precious, already dwindling hoard of sweets. Elisa smiled as she watched the small girl ponder over which sugary confection she should eat.  
  
TBC...  
  
(Liked it? Than read and review...i'm begging...really...and yes I am shameless...) 


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